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foreign [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
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listening I'm your host the captain and somebody that is with me never from Generation Y is Nick drinking a Michelob
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Ultra at crime con here's Justin thank you thank you thank you it's good to be seen and it's good to see you I'm happy
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to be seeing myself my friend [Music] on today's show I'll be drinking Guinness or what I like to call the
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adult protein shake it's my go-to beer when I used to drink beer I was a Newcastle man there you go so Newcastle
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was always the in-between between uh a dark beer like Guinness but it was always a bit nice brown ale and if
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you're wondering where is the kernel well my friends he's tied up in the basement along with Aaron from
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Generation Y we decided to do a little bit of a Wife Swap if you know what I mean don't worry we won't hurt him so
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let's gather around grab a chair grab a beer and let's talk some true crime [Music]
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Sunday July 31st 1966 6 45 p.m I don't understand what it is that compels me to type this letter Perhaps it is to leave
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some vague reason for the actions I have recently performed I don't really understand myself these days I'm
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supposed to be an average reasonable and intelligent young man however lately I can't recall when it started I've been
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a victim of many unusual and irrational thoughts these thoughts constantly recur
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and it requires a tremendous mental effort to concentrate on useful and Progressive tasks
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in March when my parents made a physical break I noticed a great deal of stress I
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consulted a Dr cochrom at the University Health Center and asked him to recommend
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someone that I could consult with about some psychiatric disorders I felt I had talked with the doctor once for about
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two hours and tried to convey to him my fears that I felt come overwhelmingly violent impulses after one season I
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never saw the doctor again and since then I've been fighting my mental turmoil alone and seemingly to no avail
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after my death I wish that an autopsy would be performed on me to see if there's any visible physical disorder
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I've had some tremendous headaches in the past and have consumed two large bottles of Excedrin in the past three
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months it was after much thought that I decided to kill my wife Kathy tonight after I pick her up from work at the
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telephone company I love her dearly she has been as fine as a wife to me as any man could ever hope to have I
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cannot rationally pinpoint any specific reason for doing this I don't know whether it is selfishness
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or if I don't want her to have to face the embarrassment my actions would surely cause her
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at this time though the prominent reason in my mind is that I truly do not consider this world worth living in and
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am prepared to die I do not want to leave her to suffer alone in it I intend to kill her as painlessly as possible
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similar reasons provoked me to take my mother's life also I don't think the poor woman has ever
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enjoyed life as she is entitled to she was a simple young woman who married a very possessive and dominating man all
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of my life as a boy until I ran away from home to join the Marine corpse the rest of the letter is handwritten and
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illegible [Music] thank you foreign how you doing tonight Captain I'm doing great awesome thanks for asking no
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problem tonight's case is something that I've been a little obsessed with for a while sadly it's because of the rise of
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mass shootings here in America right and I realize that this isn't the original mass shooting that America ever saw but
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I think it could be one of the most popular ones or well-known ones do you think yeah definitely so this is the
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case of Charles Whitman and the University of Texas Tower shooting or Texas tower sniper is what
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he was known as and on July 31st 1966 Charles Whitman sits down to write the letter that you just heard he's
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not understanding these I guess uh impulses he's having he's struggling with I guess homicidal tendencies in this
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fantasy of going up on this Tower and gunning people down yeah he definitely has some
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anger management problems just a few and uh he decides that he's going to start with his own mother his mother had
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recently moved to his his part of town and he went over to her house and went inside and bludgeoned her and then
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ended up stabbing her to death yeah what's interesting is after he beat her to death he actually took her body and
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placed it back into her bed to make it look like she was sleeping yeah he put a sheet over her
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and then he wrote do not disturb on a note put it on the front door like you do at a hotel I guess uh but this is her
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home I'm just thinking about this and I'm thinking I've never seen anyone put a do not disturb sign on a door to a
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home and I'm kind of freaked out that he thought that this would deter people uh
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so now if I ever see somebody with a do not disturb sign on their door I'm definitely calling in a welfare check on
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them but yeah yeah just instantly call 911 yeah foreign his wife is at work she's working a six
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to ten shift and he goes and gets her and takes her home he had planned to murder his wife
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in a way where she wouldn't suffer at least that's what he thought on his head so you would think
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pull out a gun shoot her but instead he will end up stabbing her to death which to me is totally not a quick way
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to die it's a brutal way to die and it's a horrible way to die right according to
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him happily married but he doesn't want his next actions to fall back on his wife or his mother and we'll go into
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more of that later but yeah because when he returns to his typewriter to continue
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this note he claims that he killed his mom and his uh wife just to spare them yeah from what was going to take place
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now what I wonder is he obviously wasn't trying to spare their life but he was maybe trying to to uh spare
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their like what I guess embarrassment or the fact that these individuals would be
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connected to him after he did this Tower shoot you know I know with his mother he felt that she
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didn't have the best life so it was almost a mercy killing but his wife she had a she was married
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to him they were happily married self-medicating at this point and he's taking methamphetamines yeah might not
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be thinking too straight so I I you know I can analyze what he was thinking but why he chose
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the way he would do this is a whole other uh question yeah so after he's murdered his wife
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he starts collecting things and he goes and writes some bad checks and buys some
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weapons he already owns a bunch of weapons but he's going to purchase more and he has a Foot Locker
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he was ex-military so that's what they're used to carrying a lot of their stuff around is a Foot
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Locker and he gets rope he gets food he gets water yeah they they claim that he had enough supplies for two weeks and
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then 700 rounds of ammo and again I think anyone that's paid attention lately you know that a
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mass shooting is not going to last very long this guy was planning for the Long Haul he figured he would be doing this
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for a while that's kind of creepy right yeah well you think if you continue shooting from a tower and for two weeks
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that if they don't come and get you and kill you that at some point people are just not going to go around that Tower
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yeah you'd think this is the Arsenal that we know that he had he had a Luger nine
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millimeter pistol he had a Smith and Wesson 357 Magnum uh revolver had a uh an M1 carbine rifle
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a Remington Model 141 it's a 35 caliber rifle a Remington 700 six millimeter rifle Sears Model 60
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semi-automatic shotgun it's 12 gauge just a lot of guns and then he had a uh a 25 caliber pistol
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as a I guess his final backup this guy believed he had like 10 hands yeah so he's got all of this and he packs it all
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up in his foot locker and decides I'm gonna go down to this Tower and set up all my weapons and
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start gunning people down but he has to get there first and it's not the it's not like you can just show up with all
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this and walk up there and No One's Gonna notice so he's got a off you skate a little bit and he's gotta use some
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social engineering to get in so he arrives at the parking lot he says he's like a research student or
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something to that effect right yeah it's weird because I actually saw a documentary where they talk about him
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wearing like repairment like a repairman outfit like a janitor yeah yeah but then
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for some reason when he gets there he's like this might not work so he tells the
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guy at the parking lot I'm I'm a researcher so he's allowed to park in the parking lot
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he gets a dolly he puts everything in his you know Foot Locker and he covers it up and he puts it on the dolly
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and he wanders right into the building jumps on the elevator and goes up to the top floor because he's trying to make it
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to the rooftop different reports will say 27th or 28th floor but regardless he has to carry all this upstairs once he
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gets there but he he comes across Edna who is like the receptionist and initially he he tells her I'm here to
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repair something and she doesn't really buy his story and she says she needs to call someone
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to verify and when she turns her head to call he actually beats her and drags her
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bloodied body like behind a couch and hides her there he doesn't kill her or he doesn't shoot her right away he's
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actually beating her first and then he's going to the stairwell because you have to go up these this
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flight to get up to the rooftop and it's like three I think three or four flights
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of stairs that he has to drag this you know Dolly with all his crap on and when he's going back a family shows
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up that's wanting to go up on the rooftop also and do the uh the tour so now he's stuck in this situation
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where he's just beat this poor old lady and then there's this family there and that's when he starts shooting and he
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opens fire on the on the family first yeah he ends up killing two of the family members not really for sure how
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many he wounded but I know that he killed two the first guy is I hope I'm saying this what right but it's uh Mike
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gabar that's he's actually a Cadet for the Air Force and so we start shooting and he wounds multiple family members
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and kills two of them instantly once he figures they've retreated or they're no longer in in his line of sight
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he actually goes back over to Edna and shoots her and finishes her off and then he
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ascends these stairwells and uh it's said that because he had this heavy Dolly with all the stuff on it every
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single step made a huge bang sound and people heard it in the building and didn't quite know what it was but it was
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him dragging this dolly up this flight of stairs have you seen footage of like what his Viewpoint would be looking down
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off the top yeah yeah because it's it's it's high enough to give me the heebie-jeebies as far as like because
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I'm afraid of heights so when they start showing like what he would be seeing when he looked down on
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people it's a lot higher up than you would think and sadly it gave him a really good field of vision and kill zones yeah
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to you know go on this you know Rampage here well right unless but let's stay on
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that point for a second because yes good vantage point but you have to be a pretty good shot
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what do you think yeah and uh he was ex-military he was in the Marines he got uh an expert badge uh which is not the
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highest badge you can get but the second highest right so he's pretty good yeah and he you know the Marines they have a
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pretty good their test especially back then I'm sure was pretty hard to pass when I was in the Army I actually hit 40
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out of 40 but I don't think I had to shoot at as many targets as the Marines back in the 1943 did once he's up on the
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tower he distributes his guns on all four sides and it's like an observation deck but there's a square in
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the middle and then there's the perimeter so you can only walk around on the perimeter of this and there's little
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gaps and holes in the the concrete rails so he's shoving the barrels of these weapons through
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and making sure that no matter what side he's on there's always a weapon there and then he's got his uh his rifle and
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his hand that's going to be his primary weapon that the the basically the way to
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think of this is think of Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks and Sleepless in Seattle and think about the last scene that's
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kind of how the tower is set up and another thing this allows him to do is you know you have a shotgun and
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you're this high up shotgun's not going to kill somebody possibly at that range or it's going to
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be really hard to hit someone with a shotgun rifles they uh they have the range or even as pistols
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but one of the shotguns is just laying there sticking out as he walks past it he'll just pull the trigger and it goes
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off and then he's around the corner shooting at somebody else so it gives the illusion that there are multiple
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people up on this observation deck firing what's also interesting about the position he's in is I believe that these
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walls are concrete and there are over 30 centimeters thick so basically he has the ability to
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shoot and the only thing that that law enforcement could shoot back at would be like the top of his head yeah so even if
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they shot the wall that he was right behind it was not going to penetrate through the wall no
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and when he starts firing uh the few police officers that are around the you know they were issued revolvers and
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shotguns at the time and you know 38 caliber pistol it's I mean the bullets gonna make it up there
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but then once it hits that that cement block that you know concrete wall it's it's not doing anything and the
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tiny Target to to pinpoint and it's just not going to work out for them at all because they're outgunned and they he
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has the higher ground so they can't they can't do anything one of his first victims that he shoots when he gets on
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this Tower is a pregnant woman well and this shows you how big of a piece of [ __ ] this
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Charles guy is because he it's not like he shoots her in the head or the arm or the chest or anything
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he goes right down and shoots her and her pregnant belly and it's it's almost I mean no I won't even say
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it's almost it is his intent to shoot her in the belly because he's a good shot he'll make some other shots up here
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that are far further distance through tiny holes so he knows where he's shooting her yeah and of course people
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are running out to save her and her boyfriend and they are now targets and this is
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what snipers do that first shot isn't always the shot to kill somebody sometimes that first shot
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is to wound somebody and then all your buddies come out to save you and that gives the sniper more targets to pick
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off yeah so it's a disabling shot well and he and that I believe he picked a pregnant woman because more people are
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likely to run to the aid of her exactly than than anybody else he goes on and shoots multiple people and there's like
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three friends that are from like the Peace Corps that are just going out for lunch
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guns them down it's just peop random people throughout their day and I think it's I don't know what 20
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minutes into the shooting that now everyone down below understands what's happening and are starting to are
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starting to take cover starting to to duck out hide well and that's what's strange is uh you know if
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you've been ever if you've ever been outside playing at night and you hear possibly a gunfire or maybe a firework
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or something sometimes it's hard to figure out where it's coming from so it sounds crazy but it's like you
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said it takes people over 20 minutes to kind of figure out one that there's somebody shooting from
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the tower and because there's so many people that are going out in open areas looking around
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trying to figure out where this fire is coming from there's a uh a journalist named Richard Hill who hears that
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somebody's been shot at the tower so he grabs his pen and paper and drives on down
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because he doesn't understand that there's a sniper and so he gets there he jumps out of his
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car and he sees a bunch of students like huddled underneath like an awning or something and they're telling him you
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know like take cover and they're like you better not walk out there and they're actually laughing when they say
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it they're saying man you better take cover you better get out of here and Richard doesn't it doesn't click you
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know it's he doesn't take them seriously because he's not understanding the situation and I hate to say it but I'm
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kind of like these kids I might laugh at the wrong time when something's just so
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atrocious or just ridiculous like what we're now huddled underneath this awning uh so well it's just a nervous laughter
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Richard is walking and he's being shot at now because he didn't quite get it he was
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actually just going to report about probably Edna yeah and didn't know um and there's
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have you ever find yourself in a situation like this there's line of sight and if they can see if you can see
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them then they can see you and then there's cover and concealment concealment just means you're behind I
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don't know a car or an awning so the person can't seal can't see you but cover right is you're actually behind a
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wall or behind an embankment that gives you protection so a lot of these people are just
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concealing themselves behind just chairs and whatnot and if Charles sees them behind
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something and sees them moving he can still fire upon them and that bullet's going to go right through
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whatever they're hiding behind and hit them [Music] [Music] thank you all right we're back cheers mates well
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do you know if they knew how many shooters there were in the town they didn't know until the final moments and
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they assumed yeah they definitely assumed there was more than one there was more than one because of the amount
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of Fire coming from the tower the amount of gunshots coming because like I said you would just pull the trigger you know
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on a 12 gauge shotgun on one side and then run over the other side and take take a pop shot at somebody how you
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watched the YouTube clip of this yeah yes it's like weird because at first it seems like a movie I mean like this
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clock tower it kind of has that hint of um Back to the Future yeah the Clock Tower
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and and so when you see it in black and white and all you see is the gun smoke coming and it's so unclear who's
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shooting or if there is a shooter almost looks like it's coming out of nowhere and when you hear multiple shots fired
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in quick secession you you don't assume that's one person and then when you have
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the police officers returning fire you can't really make out how many people are shooting how many perpetrators there
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are it's just Madness uh he ends up hitting an electrician named Roy Dell Schmidt
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from 500 yards away it says five football fields this guy had been hiding behind his car
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for over 30 minutes since this since the shooting started and he thought it's safe I'll Stand Up Now was there anybody
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as the shooting um was taking place that ever said this possibly could be Charles Whitman no they that from my
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knowledge uh they were just responding to the incident and they had no idea that his wife and mother were
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at their homes well because he because he put a do not disturb sign on the mother's door so nobody Disturbed
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it there it is that's why his note worked uh he shot another he shot another man that was behind a uh I guess
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like a construction barricade or a spindle and there was just like a small like six inch gap between the wood
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and he was able to hit this man [ __ ] that's a good yeah it's it's just brutality and he's very efficient at it
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so the shooting lasts about 96 minutes from start so like roughly like the the length of a Judd Apatow film you like my
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awful references I said sleeveless in Seattle uh Back to the Future are now Jed out
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I'm like Sleepless and [ __ ] Seattle we have a shooter or multiple Shooters law enforcement doesn't know but at some
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point when you have 30 over 30 centimeters of concrete basically blocking the psychopath you have to enter
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the tower now you're going to get to go up and the elevator or you can go by stairs but at some point you're going to
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have threes three floors that you have to go through just by stare to get to the observation deck
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where the the shots are being fired but now you're gonna you're gonna have to send officers in there and you don't
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know how many shooters there are the when you get up to that observation deck there's a lot of windows
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so you're exposed to the shooter still if the shooter looks inside he can see you and there's very little
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uh cover or concealment for you when you first step out onto that observation deck how many officers do they send up
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to the observation deck well this one police officer named Ramiro Martinez he was off duty that day and he heard
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about the shooting so he came up and he doesn't he he's just showing up uh and it sucks because these officers when
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they're going there they're having to walk through the dead bodies to get to the Tower there's no real concealment
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for them they're having to zigzag and run to the tower to get there well Martinez he's going up the elevator
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and he gets off and he runs into three other police officers three other guys uh a guy named Alan Crum Houston McCoy
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and there's special he's a public safety agent and his name's Deb Cohen public safety agent
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I'm assuming he's a a security guard yeah for the campus yeah but can you imagine you you have to have the biggest
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cojones to decide hey I'm going to go up there I have no clue how many shooters there are
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but I'm going to go up there who's coming with and you got four guys and being that this is Texas people you know
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Don't Mess with Texas they all have guns so Cohen had actually gone home and got
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his rifle brought it back and gave it to one of the officers I'm still waiting to
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read a story where the law enforcement officer had an elephant gun yeah it seems like a great time for one and
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this scenario well the interesting thing about this is we don't have the militarization of police until much
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later yet here's a perfect example of why they might need rifles or they might need armored vehicles or stuff like that
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or pretty much a SWAT team is what I'm looking for to respond to this not the Beat cop with a pistol we'll break down
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how they decide to enter the towers observation deck all three of them came out onto the observation deck and one of
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them stood at the door and faced you know whatever Direction while the other two
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started going around Each corner looking for the shooter so the one guy staying there he's he's there just to see if if
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this shooter comes around the corner he's there to to Ambush him so the other yeah these other two guys they're going
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around Each corner and they have to expose themselves they have to whip out there
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yeah no they have to lean that seems like a very weird law enforcement practice they have to lean we're gonna
00:31:20
be careful with your words here they have to lean lean to the left yeah I don't know how you said it you
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know you can't make that [ __ ] up and they check the first corner coast is clear
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they go to the next corner and they they're hearing the shots and they're getting louder and louder so
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they know they're you know they know they're getting close but again they think there might be two guys up here so
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they're they're kind of freaked out and they see Charles as sort of gunning somebody down so
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they come up and one of them shoots him and the other one jumps down to his knees and they both
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fire upon him and hitting Charles and Charles had to actually sort of turned towards them at this point to engage
00:32:14
them right and and they claim that he's they give credit to Houston McCoy I think for the the kill but like we
00:32:24
know the full story I think they're I think not only both of them should be you know responsible for the kill but
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also the third guy that got onto the observation deck as well but I think they credit Houston McCoy because of his
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name yeah and if he was the first guy to shoot whatever it is um but they they want to make sure this
00:32:46
guy's down so they they double tap them they go over and they give him a a fatal shot or the execution shot just
00:32:54
to make sure and I don't blame him one bit because this guy's been terrorizing this entire
00:33:02
city almost for the last you know hour and a half and just in case he's not quite dead they
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finish him off and they meet back up with you know their their squad just to make sure that
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there's nobody else but they're pretty sure now like okay we got them and they actually are having to duck because
00:33:28
the police down on the ground are still shooting at them so a few bullets actually Ricochet by their heads while
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after yeah that would be my luck I'd go in there I'd kill the shooter and then I'd get shot they have to inform people
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fairly quickly to cease fire the shooters down and and sadly as soon as they get the
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word out everybody comes pouring out of the buildings and they just knew that they'd killed this one guy up on the
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observation deck they weren't too sure if there was anyone else in the tower somewhere else on another floor could
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you imagine hundreds of people coming out and now they're targets too if if this
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wasn't the only guy right but at some point you have to come out you know when they say
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the coast is clear at some point you have to take your chances I just I would just assume that there would be more you
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know with the large amount of police presence they'd be like everyone stay down everyone stay where you're at Let's
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uh make sure that this is all good yeah and you also wonder about if there was a second shooter
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and you let all these individuals out now you have hundreds and hundreds of people if there was a second shooter
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that somehow got from the top of the tower all the way to outside again that they could disappear I didn't even think
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of that they could just blend right in I mean that's what the Parkland shooter guy did he was able to walk away and he
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not picked up until later so after hearing doll clear people are out and they now have
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identified Charles Whitman and they're going to his home where they're going to find his dead wife
00:35:25
yeah Kathleen and they're gonna find his murdered mother also and that's where they're going to find his note and
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is it fair to say it's a suicide yeah I would say it's a suicide note uh or is it a homicide oh there you go you
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know uh it's almost both I call American Mass Shooters our version of a suicide bomber but they are able to kill a lot
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more people because they can shoot at them as opposed to just trying to set themselves off in the middle of a crowd
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but in this note he mentions uh that he loved his wife he mentions that she was a wonderful person
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and that he had these horrible thoughts and that he hopes that they can do an autopsy on him and look at his brain and
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see if there was anything that caused him to do this and they do do that and they end up finding a small tumor
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they say it's the size of a book of a pecan or a pecan depending on where you're at
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uh yeah it's not a tumor uh but it's pushing up between his Thalamus his hypothalamus and if this is all you
00:36:46
know about the story well hey this guy was happily married everything was great and then he had homicidal thoughts and
00:36:55
he goes on this Rampage and he has a tumor case closed right yeah it's it's it's one of those things where it gives
00:37:01
you an answer and then also makes you on some level feel bad for Charles Whitman
00:37:08
like maybe he couldn't control himself but I think there's evidence to point that maybe this tumor could be a
00:37:18
percentage of the cause but not the full cause I always have a scale of nature versus nurture when it comes to any Mass
00:37:25
shooter serial killer whatever and I always think there's a blend I don't think it's always nurture or it's always
00:37:32
nature I always think it's a percentage of well we've had a lot of you know there's a lot of people
00:37:39
that uh struggle and fight every day that have cancerous tumors and they're not going around and shooting
00:37:46
individuals but the brain works in mysterious ways so you wonder if it just grows at a certain point if this makes
00:37:55
people more capable of this kind of action but I think of the DC snipers or the Parkland shooter or a lot of these
00:38:03
other people and it's not proven that they all had tumors a lot of them are either radicalized or just did they have
00:38:13
any idea of when this tumor started they said it was pretty malignant and that it
00:38:20
had there's disagreements about this tumor a lot of disagreements and some people say it's not even a tumor or they
00:38:28
don't even believe it exists so you're right when you said it's not a tumor uh well and maybe the reason why again
00:38:37
why would somebody claim that there was a tumor when there wasn't well we gotta go back to the idea that Whitman was an
00:38:46
officer he was a U.S marine and that would explain away this crazy behavior this psychotic behavior it also
00:38:55
explained away why our the Marines did nothing about it did nothing about this person
00:39:03
so it gives them kind of a let them off the hook way out by saying well we didn't know anything about this and
00:39:12
Charles wasn't crazy there was no sign of that he had a tumor but when we look at Charles's upbringing in his childhood
00:39:22
there's some things in there and uh his father was a domestic abuser well let's start
00:39:30
with the fact that Charles was a handsome young kid he had like blonde hair I think blue
00:39:37
eyes kind of like the All-American boy youngest Eagle Scout in America I think of the youngest kid to ever become a
00:39:45
eagle scout at the time which that's pretty cool he is the quintessential All-American boy
00:39:53
uh I'm assuming it's because his father pushed him he he was overbearing I wanted to as like another excuse like
00:40:03
well this guy was beaten by his father um but back in the 50s there was a lot more
00:40:11
physical punishment that happened so he's beaten by his father he hated his father
00:40:17
and there's there's an incident that's talked about a lot where when he got older a teenager he uh
00:40:27
oh the one where he's 19. story when he comes home and his dad uh so upset with him that he
00:40:34
beats him to a bloody pulp and then tries to drown him in the pool yeah and well here's the thing though
00:40:41
it's like I mean he he did have a father he had a mother they had a pool things could have been worse this is
00:40:50
true but he is living in a very hostile environment and his he's watching his mother get
00:41:00
beaten and verbally abused emotionally abused this is just the most unhealthy living
00:41:07
situation for anyone to be in and it's his father that is the the evil one in this whole thing and he
00:41:15
hates his father with a passion right he seems to be one of those fathers too where it's like no matter what you do
00:41:22
it's not good enough like you become like the youngest Eagle Scout in American history at that point and it's
00:41:30
not good enough for your father no I mean he's the youngest Eagle Scout yet he still gets
00:41:35
uh you know almost killed for going out and drinking and this is the amount of pressure
00:41:42
that's put on Charles so he he joins the Marines but even before this there was rumors of
00:41:49
him bullying kids and and basically you know he he would get bullied by his father so what did he
00:41:56
do he went and bullied you know other kids and I think we've all seen that I mean I remember one time
00:42:04
um in high school there was this kid that he would fight anybody and I thought what what the heck is wrong with
00:42:09
him and then I heard that uh every time that he got in a fight that his dad would hear about his dad would
00:42:16
beat him up real bad and then you you almost wonder why the heck is he getting in a fight then every time he gets in
00:42:23
trouble for it he gets beat up but it's almost like maybe some kind of like self-punishment
00:42:28
yeah and it's it's a cycle of violence not everybody that's been abused is going to go on and abuse others but
00:42:36
it it is a little bit of a stereotype it does happen a lot I actually wish his dad was a little bit
00:42:44
more of a monster and would have drowned him in that pool because if they would have then we
00:42:49
wouldn't have the 17 innocent people dead we want to have the pregnant lady dead we want to have the 30 31 wounded
00:42:57
people I understand your logic but when he was doing this to Charles Charles was
00:43:04
innocent but I get it if if I went back in a time machine and yeah yeah which one yeah which one would you pick Justin
00:43:13
come on you want to pick the Dead kid in the pool are you going to pick the 17 dead people I'm gonna have to swallow
00:43:20
swallow my pride a little bit and uh one over multiple he uh he joined the military and
00:43:28
it was during the time of uh wasn't it the Cuban crisis Charles joined the Marines
00:43:34
they they said that he was actually really well liked and probably had an IQ of 138
00:43:40
which isn't bad and then after joining the Marines is that's when he's actually going to go uh to Austin and start at
00:43:47
the University of Texas this is where he also is going to marry his wife and then he actually goes back into the
00:43:56
Marines during the Cuban but he's still crisis it's when he's meeting his wife like his first stint with the Marines
00:44:04
he's exemplary he is awesome clean record he gets Awards all the stuff he's in a very regiment regimented
00:44:15
environment and I think that's what he needed yeah but see this is one one I wonder if the
00:44:22
tumor actually started or if there was maybe not even tumor as much as there possibly could be just some mental
00:44:30
illness that started rearing its ugly head because like we said he's in the military
00:44:38
then he goes to college he gets married then he goes back and he goes from well-liked smart hard-working to yeah
00:44:47
they can't stay he's uh he's gambling he's drinking he's acting as a loan shark and lending other soldiers money and if
00:44:57
they don't pay him or he gives them such a high interest rate that they can never
00:45:02
pay him that he'll go and assault them it's like what and it gets so bad that they end up discharging him and then
00:45:14
that's when he goes he decides well I'm going to go back to Austin and I'm going
00:45:18
to show them I'm going to enroll into school and I'm going to get my life together but he's not
00:45:24
he's what drives me nuts in a lot of these mass shootings is how many times there
00:45:31
was warning signs like there was people that came out and said that he would constantly point up
00:45:38
to the tower and say that would be a great place to go up and shoot people from like if somebody says that you need
00:45:45
to tell somebody I I just covered a similar situation on my peripheral podcast where uh they were telling the
00:45:53
school officials I'm going to kill my fellow students and the school counselor said oh that's nice and sent them on
00:46:00
their way I mean it's pathetic there's so many times look what's the worst thing that can happen
00:46:06
um when I was in eighth grade I heard a kid jokingly say that he was going to kill
00:46:14
himself to another individual that one kid was getting picked on he kind of jokingly said to the guy hell
00:46:22
it'll be funny when I'm dead after I kill myself or something like that and it was like
00:46:29
whether it's a joke or not yeah I told a counselor and then they pull him down to the
00:46:36
office well guess what he was thinking about this he was actually thinking about
00:46:40
killing himself at school because of bullying and all that stuff and and that was enough to get the kids some
00:46:47
help and then later on he thanks you and in this scenario it's like if one of these people would have came forward and
00:46:54
said Charles doesn't seem like that bad of a guy but he keeps saying these weird
00:46:57
things about shooting people from a tower that maybe they go get him checked out
00:47:03
and then they find this tumor and if that is the cause of what happened then maybe they get help or they get
00:47:10
help for a mental illness or get help for the trauma that he faced he saw a doctor
00:47:16
child uh I think it was a psychiatrist at the University and he told that person
00:47:23
about his fantasy and they talked for a good two hours and that doctor said well we need to
00:47:31
talk again and he scheduled another appointment but of course Charles didn't show up to
00:47:38
the next appointment because he had other plans right but that's when the doctor needs to go to law enforcement
00:47:44
and say we need to do something especially you know an ex-marine and that's what
00:47:50
makes you really wander was it a mental illness was it some trauma as as a child or was it this
00:47:59
tumor what what was the real reason for these innocence that's where I look at it and I think you have a mix of
00:48:08
both nature and nurture his nurture was not good his childhood was not good his father was showed him that violence was
00:48:19
the answer to everything and the reason why his mother was living down the street and his father was on
00:48:27
the other side of the country was because back home the neighbors were calling the cops and saying someone's
00:48:35
going to die if you don't get here he's going to kill her because his father was
00:48:40
just beating the crap out of his mother so she moved across country and stayed with with Charles and his wife
00:48:50
for a bit and then got her own place and that's why she was there was escaping this domestic abuse this whole
00:49:00
environment but she walked into the arms of another devil to get to escape from one another
00:49:06
one and like you said you on some level you'd think that Charles Whitman would want to
00:49:13
protect his mother especially after she gets out of this abusive situation but again I mean I'm not a psychologist so I
00:49:21
don't know but the trauma that he could have faced as a child could have been too overwhelming
00:49:26
for possibly for him to and to your question you know do you choose this one child or do you choose the 17 victims I
00:49:34
would have preferred Charles just to go back and take it out on his father the person that started this whole chain of
00:49:40
events haven't changed my answer that's what I would prefer you just didn't give
00:49:45
me as if we could go back into time yes we're killing Charles Charles could do it himself if he likes and yeah with all
00:49:53
the guns with his ten hands all at once and we he could even shoot him from the tower
00:50:02
he said that his mom had lived a uh pathetic useless life uh just being beaten at the hands of this man so he I
00:50:14
feel he killed his mom because it was a mercy killing he was just like your your life is done you haven't lived
00:50:21
a life you've just been a victim so I'm going to end you and put you out of your
00:50:26
misery yeah I I actually think that he killed his mother and his wife just in case he lived through this
00:50:35
that he wouldn't have to see how they reacted to him afterwards does that make sense like he wouldn't
00:50:44
have to see the shame in their eyes because he's a mass murderer or the disgust that his wife would have
00:50:53
for him for committing these crimes I actually think that's I think you're right especially his wife because he has
00:51:01
no motivation to murder her there's nothing there there's no reason why so yeah it's it's just brutal but this is the
00:51:12
this is the case this is the story this is the shooting that I think started at all and I don't really
00:51:20
understand how this became a thing in America do you think it's a tool I don't think it's a tumor I think it was him
00:51:31
with a plan I I disregard the tumor it might have had a factor in it but I disregard the tumor myself why like
00:51:39
the fact that you said that the tumor might be a rumor the tumor might be a rumor
00:51:45
and I think possibly so and that would be to cover up the discharge his involvement
00:51:55
and the United States Marines but whether it's a tumor or not this was a horrible tragedy
00:52:02
and something that um and the biggest mass shooting in history as of 1966. foreign
00:52:20
I want to thank you for joining Us in the garage I've always been a fan of you and Aaron big Generation Y fan if
00:52:31
if somebody wants to check out your podcast well actually you have two pockets we
00:52:37
have the generation tell me about your two shows if you don't know about that show I don't I don't know what rock
00:52:42
you've been living under you can find us anywhere iTunes Stitcher all that stuff
00:52:46
uh when you talk about True Crime you have to talk about mental illness you have to talk about domestic abuse
00:52:54
but sometimes you can't really go really deep into it in lieu of the story so I started another podcast called the
00:53:02
peripheral where I interview listeners such as yourself that are listening right now about uh rape about
00:53:11
domestic abuse about mental illness about addiction uh just any story that is somebody that thinks they might be alone
00:53:22
and hopefully others will hear it and you'll know that it's not something on the peripheral it's something that
00:53:30
should be in the mainstream yeah and hopefully I can be a guest on your show that would be awesome
00:53:35
soon all right man uh I don't think I'm planning to see you until crime con next
00:53:42
year but until then we will we'll drink some more awesome thank you so much for having me
00:53:54
hopefully you guys enjoyed a little bit of the mash up this week check out our good buddies Justin and Aaron and their
00:54:00
podcast Generation Y it can be found anywhere iTunes any podcast app or you can check them out on the web the
00:54:08
generationwidepodcast.com if you'd like to hear Nick and Aaron's mashup that's going to be episode 291 on the
00:54:16
Generation Y podcast feed so check that out until next week be good be kind and don't shoot Nida
00:54:24
[Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music]